“The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you,” says singer/songwriter BB King. But what happens when people take it away from themselves?

Despite the importance of education in everyday life, there has been a noticeable decline in the amount of students willing to put in the effort to learn. Previously, there would only be one or two students in a class struggling to complete their work; now, only a few years later, that number has increased drastically.

The rise in unfinished and unoriginal work has been an issue for many teachers. When students are unmotivated to do their work, the overall material in the class is diluted or completely abandoned from lesson plans. Even just a few kids refusing to do their work can cause a major setback for everybody to finish their assignments, causing a domino effect of making no progress.

“There’s definitely students who don’t have the will to finish their work,” says language teacher Kateri Olivares. “Especially in classes like French and Spanish, they’re electives instead of core subjects, so that might be part of the reason why kids don’t always do their work.”

Though Mrs. Olivares offers that being an elective teacher may play a role in the recent lack of focus, it has also been observed by teachers of various other subjects, including the core classes in education. However, teachers aren’t the only ones who have seen this happening: students themselves have noticed the trend among their peers as well.

“I feel like people haven’t really been applying themselves,” freshman Brianna Taylor explains. “Especially now that teachers allow for kids to just make up most of their work, and you could still get full credit for [an assignment] even if you turn it in late.” Whether it is teacher discretion or district policy, the ease in which students can turn work in at any point contributes significantly to this concern.

Whether it be from a lack of set rules or just general carelessness, there is undoubtedly a growing number of students unwilling to do their work in class. The main focus shouldn’t be on the issue itself, though: instead, we should prioritize coming up with solutions for the problem, so that way students will be more encouraged to learn and teachers will be more encouraged to teach.

A key reason as to why this is a major issue across the nation may be a decrease in attention spans. With the rise of short-form content consumption, people can start to feel detached from the world around them. Especially doing more mundane activities, such as solving math problems or writing an English essay, can begin feeling pointless to those who can’t focus long enough to complete them.

Education is power. With more knowledge, people can navigate their lives with more ease and rationality. Purposely ignoring education can lead to unreasonable decisions in life, as well as a lessened ability to protect oneself against being taken advantage of.

Learning in school not only helps against being exploited, but it prepares students for real life as well. In all aspects of life, there is bound to be at least something that one does not want to do, but has to do it anyway. Whether it be in a career, personal relationships, or anything else, decisions will be made that go against what one actually wants to do. 

By completing schoolwork despite not wanting to, people are being set up for reality. But what if students stop doing their work simply because they don’t want to? What does that say about the future of workers? 

Disregarding education will lead to unfortunate circumstances for everybody involved: students will grow to be less informed about the world around them, which can result in unfavorable outcomes in their environment, while also not being prepared for typical adult lives. Education is vital for a functional society, and the rise in indifference towards it will only end in hardships.